Aryanil Mukherjee 

Übersetzer:in

I tell myself to aggravate ferocity

with those I had chosen to be worse with last year

those I had toiled more to be hostile with this year

Who put tongue against blade?   

Everyday feet entwined by sun

not submissive mornings but sparkling afternoons

arranged my books before orderly rows of insecticides

unwritten absences of buddies on the pages

Would you traverse elsewhere?

Effortless stops of choice descending from the bus

alleys proximate, early arrival of stray-dog-catcher vans

that howled by

You watch the dreaded tremors

                                  of saved animals

Everyday, do you think about dad?

hate the compulsion of going to work

before mirror, by not looking at

what is aging by habit training    

I have woven together these thoughts with myself

they fall inside of me in continuous moonlight

between blade and its metallic sound

how far do the ears transport it?

Perhaps this is how events shape time

grammar makes language

with a plasticity

alive at the instant before bullet shatters glass

when I can touch its palpitation and wonder

if it was long before

Does language rupture too

and splintered skin shows

wounds of the mother tongue?